The Idiot Genius
by MarvelCW
Summary: When Tony brings the wrong IronMan suit to a battle, do you think he'll tell his team? Or will he suffer the consequences in order to maintain his pride? Includes: Thor, Hulk, IronMan, BlackWidow, HawkEye, CaptainAmerica, and large evil slugs. A little Tony!Whump and Concerned!Avengers. IronWidow, Clintasha, and Hulktasha could all be there if you squint. Read to your preference.


Name

"What exactly did Fury _tell you_ about these arctic _slugs_ anyway?!" Natasha demanded from the cockpit, where she was sitting in the copilot seat with Clint in the pilot's seat.

"Just called in a few hours ago, said SHIELD didn't have enough units to circle back to Antarctica until at least next week. He's only sending us because he's out of options, I'm sure we'll be in and out in a few hours tops." Steve answered, grabbing the winter suit Stark had designed for him for the most mobility and warmth possible in below freezing temperatures.

Natasha and Clint had already put on their own winter attire, having been packed for anything. Even though the mission had started, and was supposed to end on a tropical island where they were searching for any remaining HYDRA bases.

Thor had claimed that the weather never bothered him, whether it be freezing cold or boiling hot. Bruce said he hadn't had any trouble with keeping warm since the Hulk moved in, apparently the other guy was good for something after all, Bruce thought to himself.

"Do I even need to ask, Tin-Man?" Clint hollered from the cockpit as they landed, grabbing his quiver and bow.

"About what?" Tony asked, too busy talking to Jarvis about sending his insulated suit across the ocean to replace his current suit. The suit he had now was designed not only for warm weather, but instead of being insulated, it had state of the art air conditioners built in.

"That your fancy-schmansy suit's warm enough." Clint explained, a smirk at the genius' confusion aimed at Natasha, who was failing to hiding her laugh.

"Of course it is!" Tony blurted out defensively, he didn't want anyone thinking he was so stupid as to not come prepared.

"Just checking..." Clint said, turning to Natasha, who nodded at him before he pressed the quinjet's ramp's release button.

The ramp went down and in came the cold air.

As soon as it came in contact with the gold titanium alloy of the suit, Tony knew he'd screwed up. And people say you're a genius... He thought to himself.

He muted his commlink and stepped out into the snow covered field. Large slug-like creatures filled the field and when they saw the Avengers, it was only moments before they had begun trying to snack on their visitors.

The battle was going fairly well after the first hour, the slug's army had been cut in half and Hulk was just beginning on the next wave when Natasha's mental alert system went off. Where were the more-than-frequent snarking remarks? Why wasn't Stark commenting on how stupid Barton looked covered in slug slime?

She looked up at the red and gold suit, flying high above the rest of them to shoot his repulsers over the front lines and into the further back slugs to stop them from regrouping.

 _He's fine, maybe he's just grown up,_ Natasha told herself, continuing to evade slug attacks as she dug her blades into their slimy skin.

 _He's Stark, he doesn't do the whole "growing up" thing,_ Natasha reminded herself.

"Stark, you alright?" Natasha asked casually as he was smacked by a slug's tail and thrown into the sky, where he readjusted his footing and flew high enough to avoid further contact, then shot a repulser blast through the guilt slug's head.

"Jarvis, unmute me." Tony instructed, composing himself to keep from shivering before speaking loudly. "Right as rain, where do we think these things are coming from? New guys keep popping up."

"Underground. Didn't you tell me that was your warmer weather suit?" Natasha asked casually, not that he ever did say that, she was purely guessing.

"Possibly. Why?" Tony asked, muting himself again to let out a long groan at how freaking cold he was. He bet his fingers were blue. His whole body probably had frostbite, he complained to himself.

"Warm enough?" She asked, and if he wasn't mistaken, there was real worry in her voice.

"Awww, spidey has feelings!" Clint yelled out over the commlink, earning a glare from Natasha.

Tony hoped she would forget about her question, since he knew from experience that to lie to the Black Widow was speaking-suicide.

"Tony? Yes or no? ¿Sí o no?" She repeated her question in Spanish. Possibly just to get under Tony's skin, or to intimidate him, or both, Clint decided silently.

"Yes or not what? Sorry, what was the question?" Tony asked, avoiding the conversation just a bit longer as he ducked to evade another slug tail, but failed to duck low enough, and ended up splayed out in a pile of snow with a malfunctioning repulser in his left hand's gauntlet.

"Stark." Steve reprimanded, assuming he was just playing with Natasha like he normally did, not at all expecting him to be stalling.

"Suit's not insulated." He said quietly, hoping that he'd get away with only Natasha hearing him, to avoid the safety lecture from Cap.

"Idiot." Natasha rubbed her palm against her forehead after taking out another slug.

Only three more of the slugs remained, and Hulk was making quick work of getting rid of the last of them.

Clint and Thor took out the last one together, Clint sinking a metal-tailed arrow into the slug, and Thor hitting it with a powerful lightning blast from his hammer.

The slug moved around unnaturally as the electricity surged through it, then fell to the ground in a heap.

At that point, Tony had landed his suit next to Natasha and Clint.

"Come on." Natasha patted the metal shoulder of Tony's suit roughly towards the quinjet, following behind Clint, who was climbing the ramp with Steve.

Thor and Hulk came behind them, Hulk transforming back down to Bruce as they did.

"Didn't even need a lullaby?" Natasha commented, tossing Bruce a pair of jeans and a t-shirt as she waited behind the group for him.

"I think I'm getting more control over it, thanks." Bruce told her, grabbing the clothes appreciatively and putting them on briskly.

As they climbed aboard the quinjet, the ramp closed.

"Alright, Stark. Hands. Now." Natasha demanded, holding out her own hands to inspect his.

"Man, you're so forward. In front of Mr. Broccoli Boyfriend too? You must love me-!" Tony rambled as his suit disassembled around him.

Steve gave him a disapproving look and crossed his arms.

Bruce blushed at the mention of the word "boyfriend", but other than that continued to do as Steve did and looked sourly over at the billionaire.

Stumbling out of the metal claws, Tony held his hands out in front of his face. _Aw dammit, she's gonna say I told you so, isn't she?_ He internally groaned when he saw the bluish white coloring covering his fingers. Did he groan out loud? He wondered when the group gave him a look of concern.

"Not that bad." He lied with a shrug, wincing as she grabbed his hands forcefully and tugged him over to the first aid kit in the corner.

"Barton, think you can handle the stick?" Natasha asked, leaning over the table to grab the white box with a red cross on the lid.

"Natasha, that's not appropriate for in front of peoples." Clint said with a childish voice. Everyone groaned at his attempted humor. "What? Alright, alright, I get it. Only funny when Stark makes a joke. That's fine, I'll just steer the jet into a volcano. See how you like my jokes then." Clint grumbled to himself annoyingly as he grabbed the controls and began flying them back to Avenger's Tower.

Natasha rubbed some weird substance over Tony's hands, which stung immensely at first, then subsided into a subtle tingling sensation. "God dammit, don't put as much on that hand- Romanof-!" Tony shut his mouth and tried his very best to keep it shut while his second hand was engulfed in invisible flames.

"I hate you." Tony mumbled once the pain had subsided to it's subtle tingling.

"You're welcome." Natasha replied, looking a bit apologetic as he tried to scratch his nose with his elbow.

She reached over and itched his nose for him. He looked up at her with big brown dough eyes. "Sorry."

"For what?" She asked, wrapping his fingers tightly in bandages.

"I could give you a hell of a lot of answers to that one." Tony said, then instead, "I don't hate you, stupid thing to say."

"It's not like you're supposed to like someone while they pour the equivalent of acid onto an open wound." Natasha told him, then continued. "I didn't take it personally."

"Toes?" She asked after a long silence.

"Was wearing boots, they're fine." He answered nonchalantly.

"Alright." She got up and put the first aid kit back where it belonged returning to her seat next to Clint in the cockpit.

"How's Idiot genius doing?" Barton asked, flipping a switch on the ceiling.

"Still Stark." She replied.

"That's terrible." Clint said with a smirk.

 **So this was just something my brain thought up while I was sitting on the top deck of a very fast boat. With the wind and the cold, I felt frozen in place. Sort of just thought this up. Hope you enjoyed it!**

 **If you did, feel free to Follow, Favorite, and Review!**

 **-MarvelLuver**


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